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Start obeying the stop sign
To the local neighbors and residents of Lawndale/Crescentville:
Please take note that there is a newly erected stop sign at the intersection of Robbins Avenue and Shelbourne Street for traffic on Robbins Avenue.
This intersection is now controlled by a four-way stop sign. Prior to March 5, there was only a stop sign for traffic that proceeded on Shelbourne Street. The stop sign was erected on March 5. It is the result of a joint effort that was spearheaded by both Councilwoman Marian Tasco’s office and the Lawncrest Community Association, along with the support of Councilman James Kenney’s office. Without the cooperation and assistance of all three, this accomplishment would not have been possible.
Diana Wojtylak
Lawndale
Hot line is a hot idea
Regarding Joann C. Hutton’s letter to the editor in the March 4 edition (They deserve a break today), what a wonderful idea to set up a hot line for senior citizens when it snows.
I am a senior who had open heart surgery 11 years ago. I have to depend on someone knocking on my door to remove the snow.
I’m sure there are many seniors who have the same problem.
I would like to thank Joann Hutton for thinking of us. It made my heart feel great when I read her letter.
I hope the city will accept her request and set up a hot line for us.
Maybe some day I’ll be happy to see it snowing again.
Joe Stuhl
Academy Gardens
Beefing up
the Boulevard
As a native of Northeast Philadelphia who currently lives on Long Island, I read your paper online every week and enjoy keeping in touch with my hometown.
The March 4 editorial concerning potential new underpasses on Roosevelt Boulevard interested me greatly. I can remember my father negotiating both the Pennypack and Oxford circles before they had underpasses or even traffic lights; it was quite an adventure. By the time I started driving in the late ’70s, they had already been reconfigured.
The current setup of these intersections is much safer and more efficient. It makes a lot of sense to do the same at the Grant Avenue and Red Lion Road intersections.
Here on Long Island I lived through a similar construction project: the conversion of Sunrise Highway from a road similar to the Boulevard (heavily traveled with many intersections) to a limited-access highway with service roads on each side.
While the construction areas were a headache, the end result has made traveling this road (and crossing it) much safer.
I urge Gov. Rendell, Speaker Perzel and the citizens of Northeast Philadelphia to move forward on this issue. The final result will be well worth it.
Alan Strauss
Ridge, N.Y.
• • •
Thanks very much for posting the Northeast Times online. I check it every week to see what is going on in the Northeast.
Regarding the proposed underpass at Red Lion and Grant and the Boulevard, I think a more simple solution would be to simply adjust the timing of the traffic lights.
Instead of having the eastbound and westbound lanes “face off” at every change of the light, why not first give the eastbound traffic a green light while the westbound traffic still has a red light? Next, give the westbound traffic a green light while the light is red for eastbound traffic. Just alternate the flow of the eastbound and westbound traffic. It would be nice to see this proposal given a chance.
This method of traffic flow is used in many places. Politicians could have a fact-finding trip to Virginia Beach, Va., or even Wilmington, N.C., to see how it works before spending millions of taxpayers’ dollars on some complicated plan that might not be necessary. Thanks, again.
Mary A. Mayer
Wilmington, N.C.
Bushwhacked by
the Democrats
I am outraged at the biased liberal media during this process of electing a Democratic presidential nominee. The Democrats are all about Bush bashing and nothing about their issues. Whenever they get behind a microphone, it becomes a contest about who hates George W. Bush the most.
The ads that President Bush has now are being attacked. This is outrageous. 9/11 was a catastrophic tragedy and America lost 3,000 lives in an hour’s time. 9/11 defined George W. Bush’s presidency. The Democrats can’t claim it, and they wished it would have happened on their clocks. Something concerning 9/11 did happen on their clocks — the planning stages. It is known that it took several years for the terrorists to play the 9/11 attack against America. Look who was in the White House for eight years prior to President Bush. Bill Clinton was too busy corrupting the Oval Office to worry about what was going on around him, so we need to put blame where blame belongs.
Democrats are still sulking, whining and complaining about their loss in Florida. Al Gore wanted the votes recounted over and over again, and every time, George W. Bush got more. The overseas military ballots were never counted because they would have gone to President Bush also.
The Democrats are a group of sick, pathetic, desperate evildoers who will go above and beyond to try to win elections.
Republicans need to do everything they can to prevent the Democrats from getting back into the White House.
Barbara O’Donnell
Somerton
Way to go, Jacob
I would like to recognize one of your carriers. He serves the 800 block of Brill St. He is very courteous, the paper is always in plastic and inside the storm door. He sends a polite note the week he will collect. I only know his first name, Jacob, because he always writes a nice note.
Clare Robinson
Oxford Circle
What’s the big secret
with Somerton Civic?
On Tuesday night, March 9, I attended the monthly meeting of the Somerton Civic Association. I was dismayed and disappointed at the way the meeting was run and by the attitudes of some of its board and more senior members.
Covered in the meeting was the Woodhaven Road project. This has been a hot topic in this community for over 50 years and will dramatically affect the residents of Somerton and surrounding communities.
Recently, PennDOT presented yet another proposal for the Woodhaven Expressway. The main topic of the meeting was whether or not we should vote to support PennDOT’s new proposal in spite of the fact that none of the SCA membership, except the board and a select few, had seen the new proposal.
The issue I have with this is the way in which it was put to the membership. SCA president Mary Jane Hazell informed the membership that unless they voted to support PennDOT’s new proposal, PennDOT would withdraw from the project completely.
This vote was not communicated to the general membership prior to the March 9 meeting. In fact, the Woodhaven issue was never given any mention in the March newsletter at all, even though it was discussed at length during the February meeting.
At the February meeting it was also discussed that there would be a meeting scheduled to take place between the SCA board and PennDOT prior to the March meeting. This was also not mentioned in the March newsletter.
Ms. Hazell’s explanation of this was that the issue of a vote did not arise until the newsletter was already printed. However, Ms. Hazell did deem it appropriate to distribute a flier to a SELECT group informing them that a vote would be cast so they would be sure to attend.
Any remaining members, myself included, received no advance notice of a vote. When pressed on the matter Ms. Hazell said that the fliers went out to those residents who, IN HER OPINION, would be most affected.
It is my opinion, and the opinion of many others, that this vote should have been delayed until next month’s meeting. Prior to a vote everyone should have the opportunity to see the plan at PennDOT’s March 23 presentation at George Washington High School. And, before a vote of this magnitude is taken, it should be communicated to ALL dues-paying members well in advance to allow them the choice to attend or not.
When I raised these points during Tuesday’s meeting, I was repeatedly reminded by several members that I, as well as other less senior members, should keep our opinions to ourselves since we had not been attending meetings for the last 10 years.
Their opinion was that if people were not at the meeting they should not have a vote. This was in spite of the fact that SCA president Mary Jane Hazell did deem it necessary to send fliers out to certain members, as noted above, informing them of the vote.
This was very disconcerting and I quickly learned that this was not a place where a fair vote was going to occur or where varying opinions or points of view were solicited or welcomed.
If the SCA wishes to be the voice of Somerton it should solicit input from all of Somerton, even those residents with opposing viewpoints. Otherwise, it is not a fair representation of the residents of Somerton who it claims to represent.
Gary O. Peterson
Somerton Civic Association member
Editor’s note: Mr. Peterson is also vice president of the Citizens Alliance of Westwood.
• • •
I attended the Somerton Civic Association March 9 meeting. I am a member of that organization. But to some of the people of that organization, I am “one of those” (a Westwood resident). After years of frustration at the traffic on our streets, we residents of Westwood have become the target of their hate. We are the cause of their pain.
We have also been affected by the traffic, but we are a community, not enemies. Last night the Somerton Civic Association secretly handed out fliers on streets that they knew they had support to get more people to show up at the meeting. “Don’t let the enemies know.” And at that meeting they declared a vote would be taken to decide “the community’s decision.” Nobody even knows if many of the people voting were members of SCA.
This is not how a community organization should be run. The people voting did not even know what they were voting for, just that they were punishing their neighbors in Westwood. I am embarrassed to be a Somerton resident.
Rob Rubin
• • •
Your readers should be informed that the Somerton Civic Association has approved yet another Woodhaven Road alternate plan, but their association only wants to represent the constituents on the east side of Bustleton Avenue again. This is the section where fliers were delivered announcing this new plan before their last meeting.
This shows their opinion is biased and they do not represent the people living west of Bustleton Avenue, neither are the majority of them homeowners that would be affected by the construction. Nor are they living in the area that would have its neighborhood most impacted by the construction, either.
John Buchatsky
Somerton
Hey, what about us?
I have a serious beef with this city. The people of the Northeast pay high taxes to live in this city. I know everybody has heard this before, but it needs to be addressed until people of the Northeast make such a stink that things will be done.
First, our wonderful school system has a new high school being built. It is a high-tech school that Microsoft and our school system are working together on.
Where are they going to build this school? Certainly not here in the Northeast. Our fine mayor is going to build this school in the Philadelphia Zoo area. The children who will attend this school will be 40 percent from the neighborhood and many others will be chosen from a lottery.
First of all, our schools are so overcrowded here in the Northeast from people being bused in from other neighborhoods that my children can’t even go to their feeder school. They push my children wherever they see fit to make room for children who don’t even live here or pay the taxes we do. But they are building this school in a neighborhood that I would not even let my child travel to and from home.
That school should be built here, since our high schools are so overcrowded that my child has to go where they see fit.
They say they are going to build more. I feel instead of using our tax dollars to pay for public transportation so kids outside this area come to school here, they should start building more schools where they are needed. That would stop the overcrowding of our schools. We pay the highest taxes among maybe a few other areas and we get nothing.
I see 65 percent of public school students are of African-American heritage. The whites are now a minority. Will we get all the same privileges that were afforded to the African-Americans as far as quotas and such? There is now reverse discrimination going on, and it is time the white people and other minorities in this city speak up. This is not a race thing, but fair is fair. We heard for years all that was done unfair to the African-Americans.
We are paying taxes too high for us to be ignored. If they didn’t have our tax dollars, this city would be down the tubes. I have many more beefs but this is just one of many that need to be addressed. I think everyone here in the Northeast needs to speak up and loud. I know I am not the only one who feels this way.
Karen Douchette
Fox Chase
Ship the Russians out
I read with amazement your account (narrated by staff writer William Kenny) of the final phases of the Northeast-based Russian mob prosecutions (March 11 edition.)
I was surprised at the relative leniency these defendants were accorded, especially when the organized brutality of their offenses are taken into consideration. I have to wonder what kind of influence this group was able to exercise at the federal level.
It’s one thing to have scum like this enter the country because of an apparently shoddy immigration (screening) system; it’s quite another to ponder why these vermin are not subject to deportation.
It seems that the penalties would have been much harsher had the charges been governed by the RICO statutes. Also, if firearms were used or even possessed by these criminals, why were not the (federal) minimum five-year sentences imposed?
I remember when these tactics were widely (and effectively) applied against the Italian Mafia. But then again, maybe they were (and perhaps still are) utilized in the prosecution of (only) those individuals of Italian origin.
Samuel J. Munafo
Academy Gardens
Councilman takes issue
with last week’s story
For the most part, your story on the efforts of the East Frankford Civic Association captured the frustration of Peggy Hoch, Thelma Young, and others fighting valiantly to save and resurrect their neighborhood (East Frankford upset at decline of neighborhood, March 11 edition.)
However, readers could misinterpret the civic association’s relationship with this office. The article proclaimed that the group arrived unannounced at my office to demand what actions I would take to solve Frankford problems. Unfortunately, that characterization is wrong.
The civic association called my office that morning and requested a meeting that afternoon. Their arrival was not unannounced. Further, I have had a long-standing, productive working relationship with the East Frankford Civic Association. They weren’t making demands; they were looking for ways we can continue to work together, as we have in the past.
Frankford has been the recipient of considerable attention from the Street administration. It is a target NTI area for demolition of abandoned and crumbling properties and the acquisition of vacant lots for community use. CLIP is also operating successfully in Frankford, as the civic association will readily attest.
I admit, however, that more must be done.
Immediately following the meeting in my office, we contacted the managing director’s office to schedule a more intensive meeting between the civic association, my office, and the various city agencies.
I will continue to work hand in hand with the civic association to address the legitimate concerns of the Frankford community.
Richard T. Mariano
Councilman, 7th District
Keep Fido on a leash
Neighbors, beware of a dog attack. On Feb. 2 at 2:30 p.m., my son and daughter were walking along Academy Road near Woodhaven heading toward Byberry Road. At either Academy and Fairdale, or Academy and Morning Glory, a vicious dog attacked them.
The dog bit my son’s leg, causing two puncture wounds and a jagged cut in the knee. The dog came at them from either Fairdale or Morning Glory. The dog would not let go of my son’s leg, so they both fought it off and it ran back down the street where it came from. Obviously, my son and daughter were both terrified. We had to assume the worst and gave my son the required rabies treatment.
The dog was a black and brown-blended “brindle” color, with a white stripe down its face, and resembled a pit bull. We do not think it is stray, because it appeared clean and well-groomed. Many children are around the neighborhood and dogs cannot be permitted to roam freely. If a small, defenseless child were to be attacked, the situation could be very tragic.
Hopefully this was an accident and the dog was not purposely let out to roam free. People need to secure their fences and keep their dogs chained up while outside. There were people out across the street who witnessed the attack and may know the dog. My children were too scared to ask anyone for information and ran home.
Someone knows this dog, and I hope the owner is reading this. Since the owner is unknown, there is little that the authorities can do. If you see a dog wandering freely, call Animal Control at 215-685-9030 or the Department of Health at 215-685-6740 and report the owner. Let’s keep the neighborhood safe!
Your VERY concerned neighbor
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